Parti Socialiste (PS) Socialist Party
The nineteenth century was marked by a period of industrial revolution unprecedented in history. The small manufacturing of preceding ages was swept away by the gigantic factory system of modern times. But this process of transformation brought in its wake a number of new social problems. The first socialist currents in France appeared in the first part of the XIXe century.
The first socialist theorists (Saint-Simon, Fourier, Cabet, Leroux) expressed a great imagination. They usually invented a more or less fantastic scheme of social organization supposed to be free from the abuses of modern civilization, and invited humanity at large to adopt it. The scheme was, as a rule, unfolded by its author by means of a description of a fictitious country with a mode of life and form of government expressive of his own ideas of justice and reason.
The favorite form of description was a novel. The happy country thus described was the Utopia (Greek for Nowhere), hence the designation of the author as "utopian"; hence their posthumous name of "utopian Socialists". Many of their intuitions still deserve the interest, but their influence in popular politics remained marginal.
Around 1835 the word "socialism" made its first appearance in France. According to the historian G.D.H. Cole, "the 'socialists' were those who, in opposition to the prevailing stress on the claims of the individual, emphasized the social element in human relations and sought to bring the social question to the front in the great debate about the rights of man let loose by the French Revolution and by the accompanying revolution in the economic field."
Beyond the Utopia, reality is expressed in all its hardness. The new work conditions, generated by the industrial revolution, involved repressed explosions of misery: revolt. A long period of Utopian socialism was broken by the July Revolution of 1830, and the almost constant attempts of radicals and revolutionists like Blanqui to rouse the Paris Commune. The Revolutionn 1848 and the declaration of the Republic gave great hopes to the radicals, and the Socialists, mainly under the lead of Louis Blanc, demanded government shops for the unemployed. The election of Louis Napoleon to the presidencv and the coup d'etat of Dec. 2, 1851, whereby the Empire was declared, put an end to the hopes of the Socialists till the overthrow of the emperor in 1870 and the declaration of the Third Republic. The Paris Commune rose March 18, 1871, but was eventually defeated. In 1879 amnesty was granted to teh Communards, and Guesde, Brousse, Malon, and other Marxist Socialists returned.
A strong party was developed for collectivism. The great majority, the center, declared for Marxist socialism, and formed the Parti Ouvrier Socialiste Revolutionnaire de France. This organization held a congress at Rheims, 1881, and declared Le Protttaire its organ. The question was whether to agitate for a complete Socialist program at once, or for portions of it, as might seem at the time possible. Those accepting the latter policy were called Possibilists, the former Guesdists, from their leader, Jules Guesde.
Too much emphasis, however, must not be put upon French political groups. They continually changed, and under the French Third Republic the system of the second ballot allowed various groups to vote for their respective group candidates separately and then unite at the second ballot on the candidate of the particular Socialist group that seemed to have the most chance of being elected. Thus, in spite of divisions, the French Socialist vote increasedfrom 47,000 in 1887 to 120,000 in 1880; 305,000 in 1892; 440,000 in 1893; 790,000 in 1898; 86,159 in 1902. and 1,120,000 in 1906.
The main endeavor of the French Socialists had been to develop a party unity. In 1899 M. Millerand, as leader of the French Opportunist Socialist deputies, accepted the portfolio of commerce in the Waldeck-Rousreau ministry, and the French Socialists became split on the question of indorsing this or not, the leaders of the government.
While Socialism in France dated back to the French revolution, the socialist movement has for many years been weakened by internal struggles between the different schools of theory. There were the followers of Louis Blanc who advocated stateaided production by associations of producers, those of Jules Guesde, standing for pure Marxian socialism, of Millerand for extremely moderate socialism, of Jean Jaures for reformist socialism, etc.
The different socialist groups united in 1905 to form the extremely modern Parti Socialiste Unifie, which advocated socialization of the means of production and distribution, the attainment of political power by the workers, and transformation of capitalism into a collectivist society.
Dissension continued until 1906, when, under the influence of the International Socialist Congress at Amsterdam, and largely led by M. Jaures, unity was at last attained, and all the prominent Socialist groups united under the name of Le Parti Socialiste - French Section of International Worker (SFIO). This strengthened a political position which was already strong: for outside of the Chamber the French Socialists had elected sixty-eight mayors, and a representation in 111 communal councils, with the majority in sixty-eight.
After the recognition of the trade union rights in 1884, the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) constituted itself in 1895. In 1906, it adopted the "Charter of Amiens" which established the principle of the independence of the trade unionism from political socialism. From this arose the absence of institutional links between parties and trade unions which strongly distinguishes French socialism from the social democracy of Northern Europe.
Little by little, Jean Jaurès asserted himself as the major figure of French socialism, by his combat for unity, his capacity of synthesis between the republic and socialism, patriotism and internationalism, the Marxist ideas (which Jules Guesde mainly claimed itself) and the tradition of the French revolution.
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